


Bad day

by FixOrRideDaily



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: And it isn't meant to be, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mild Sexual Content, Non-Consensual, This isn't sexy, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-09 14:15:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7804975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FixOrRideDaily/pseuds/FixOrRideDaily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having a bad day? It can't be worse than Chris'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad day

**Author's Note:**

> I have been debating posting this here for A LOT of reasons. I was in a bad place when I wrote it and I don't think it's my best work.
> 
> This has Sexual Content in it, but it isn't sexy and it isn't meant to be sexy.

Josh Washington was dead.

They found his body down there in the mines. It wasn't too far away from where Emily had said she had found Beth's head. He didn't have a head anymore. There was a sick joke in that. The kind Josh would appreciate. Beth had no body and Josh had no head. Together they made a complete whole person. Both of them had gotten that way thanks to Hannah as well. Or a monster that had been Hannah at one point. Hannah who couldn't muster enough courage to tell him and Josh to stop when they were teasing her too much. Chris might have laughed at it if it wasn't so personal. 

The police had to identify Josh by his fingerprints. Chris found it amusing that Josh's run-ins with the law are what made it possible to know it was him when the search party brought back the guy's body. There was too much about this situation he found comical in a perverted way. His best friend was dead. He shouldn't think it was as humorous as he ended up thinking it was.

Like the fact that he had been making out with Ashley in his room when he heard about it. Josh would have liked that. Chris could hear him wolf-whistling at the very thought. He would have chastised Sam for interrupting the two of them. His buddy was trying to get laid here and that was a cause Josh could get himself behind. No need to stop them with the inconsequential news about his confirmed death.

Unsurprisingly, Chris was always with Ashley since the events up on the mountain. He was always with Ashley before the events on the mountain to be quite honest. He found a lot comfort in being around her. It made him feel more normal to deal with mundane things like 'Is she flirting with me?' and 'Was that an opening for me to ask her out?' after Hannah and Beth had gone missing and Josh cut himself out of the world. It made him feel even more normal now that his best friend was also gone to wonder instead if she liked the way he was kissing her or to focus on how soft her skin was. It's why he had taken to spending all his time with her.

He was in Josh's 'lair' during the wake. Not his room, but rather the basement lounge Josh had set up for himself and Chris at a young age. There were probably a lot of people too afraid to wander the Washington home but he felt completely comfortable there. He knew Sam did as well. Last he heard she had locked herself in Josh's bedroom and was crying in his bed. Josh was pretty fucking stupid for not knowing how much Sam (how much they all) had cared about him. Although you weren't supposed to speak ill of the dead even when it was well deserved.

Ashley must have felt okay wandering too because she had found him in the basement sitting on Josh's big comfy couch and staring at Josh's smart T.V. with a bottle of Josh's favorite whiskey in his hands. He hadn't been drinking it. He just found it under the cushions and didn't want to put it down. He had turned on Josh's vintage record player too. He didn't know the name of the song playing or the band it was from. He just played whatever Josh had left in there. It was Jazz. Josh did always like the blues.

“I thought I might find you down here,” she said when she reached the bottom of the stairs. She looked pretty in her mourning dress and he wished he could tell her that. Somehow he didn't feel comfortable telling her she looked nice for grieving the death of their best friend. He figured it would make her cry.

“How did you get down here on your leg?” she asked indicating his crutches which he hadn't used to walk down the steep, thin stairs. He had simply walked down on his booted cast carrying them along. He wasn't supposed to be doing that. He didn't see the real harm though as his leg wasn't broken.

“I walked,” he answered playing with the bottle in his hands.

“You limped, you mean?” Ashley tried to joke. He shot her a cold look. He didn't find that very funny. It might be the only thing about all this he didn't find funny. Probably because he had hurt it when he abandoned Josh in the wilderness to die.

“Were you drinking?” she asked softly taking a seat next to him on the couch. From her tone he could tell that if he said 'yes' she wouldn't be very happy about it. It seemed like she was always checking up on him these days. She had been fussing over him ever since the news about Josh came in. More so than she did normally anyway.

“No,” he said reaching out and putting the bottle on the coffee table in front of him before sitting back, “I found it in here. It's... it was his.”

“He liked to drink. He also liked to smoke,” she said nodding, she laughed in a chocked way he hated, “He liked anything that was bad for you really.”

“Yeah, he did,” Chris agreed. He almost smiled at the thought himself. Josh didn't do anything that was good for him. He never ate healthy, hated the sunlight, complained about exercising, drank too much, smoked too much, often said sleep was for the weak and ignored his doctors' advice. Despite all this he used to tell Chris that he would most certainly out-live him. If not in years than in experiences.

Chris wished he had been right about that.

“The three of us must have spent all our free time in this room doing nothing in high school,” Ashley mused looking around, “What a waste.”

“What should we have been doing with that time instead?” Chris asked thinking back to their tense conversation in the lodge. Saw blades descending down over them and a gun cold and heavy in his hand. She thought they had wasted everything. They thought their best friend was dead and one or both of them would be joining him. They thought so many things that turned out to be lies and then turned into the truth again.

“I don't know,” Ashley answered quietly, “Something that mattered.”

What she really meant was something that would have saved Josh. But nothing could have saved Josh. Chris had convinced himself of that. It was the only way he could sleep at night. It was the only thing he could tell himself that silenced the guilt in his heart. Therefor it had to be true.

“I know you miss him,” Ashley said softly and Chris felt her hand on his face. He turned to look her way and let her take his face in her hands. She pulled him close and stroked his cheeks. She pressed their foreheads together and he couldn't help but wonder what Josh would have to say on the topic of him and Ashley finally dating. Probably something snarky with lots of innuendo thrown in for good measure. 

“I can't even imagine how hard this is for you,” she continued. She pressed her lips quickly to his in a gentle fashion. Josh had wanted this for him. Though a lot of things he thought he had known about Josh it turned out he didn't know. This one thing had to be true though, right? Josh had wanted Chris to have Ashley. Josh had wanted Chris to make a move on Ashley. Josh had wanted Chris and Ashley to be together.

Chris sighed heavily before he kissed her again. It was much more forceful then before and she was so surprised by it that she gasped. Still she let him kiss her. She let him dip his tongue into her mouth and tease her lips with his own. She let him pull her body up against his. She let him press her hard into the couch and pin her there. She let one of his hands wander into her hair and hold her in place. She let his other hand make it's way onto her bare thigh and then start to creep under her skirt.

He would swear he heard Josh's voice in his ear telling him to do it. Telling him to take her and have her and enjoy her. 'For my sake at least, Chris. Please.' 

So despite the fact that she tried to slow down their kissing and the fact that she had moved both her hands onto his chest and was trying to push him back just a little bit, he still made his way up under her short dress. He slid his hand down passed the waistband of her panties and slipped his longest finger inside of her barely wet opening.

“Chris, we can't,” she said when he did it pulling her mouth from his. He could hear in her voice though that she liked what he was doing so he continued adding in a second finger and recapturing her mouth with his own. They had messed around enough times by then that he had a decent handle on what Ashley sounded like when she was aroused. Though truth be told he hadn't touched her like this before. They had mostly stuck to dry humping and making out. He had fondled her breasts underneath her shirt a few times, but that was about it. This was very different. He began to work hard at fingering her pressing his palm above her slit in hopes of hitting her clitoris.

"Chris, this isn't right," she tried to tell him again pulling her lips away from his for a second time. It was hard to take that seriously when she started whining out in pleasure. Even though he wasn't very adapt at this sort of thing his intention with her was clear. He wasn't trying to get her off. He was trying to get her ready.

“Shh, don't talk. Just enjoy it.” That sounded nothing like him. It sounded like someone else that he had known quite well and for quite a long time in his life, but nothing like him.

“Stop,” she comanded shoving him away from her. He pulled his hand from her to allow her to stand up and storm away from the couch. His face hurt and he wondered what kind of expression he was making. Ashley was shaking her head like she couldn't believe him, but she was calm as she explained, “Chris, we can't do this. It's Josh's wake. Don't you understand how disrespectful that would be?”

His laugh was bitter and dry.

“Right... disrespectful,” he said feeling inferior to her if only because he couldn't stand on his bum leg. Well he could stand but she would get angry at him and scold him for it so it was better not to chance it.

“Do you find that funny?” Ashley asked clearly upset with him.

“I find it funny that now that Josh is dead everybody wants to act like they knew him,” Chris barked, “Let me tell you something, Ash. Nobody knew Josh the way I knew Josh. And considering how many times he told me that I should give you a good fucking to help you out with your anxiety problem I have a hard time picturing Josh finding this disrespectful.”

“I'm sorry, Chris,” Ashley pressed on angrily, “Are you mad at me because I won't have sex with you at Josh's wake to make you feel better about him dying?”

“That's... that isn't what I meant,” Chris yelled leaning as far forward as he could without standing up.

“What did you mean?” Ashley asked tears in her eyes. He wasn't sure what from. From grieving over Josh or him yelling at her or something else entirely. He felt bad about that. He hated to see her cry.

“He was that kind of guy,” Chris tried to explain, “The kind of guy who would get a kick out of two people doing it at his wake. He'd say something about them using an excuse about the futility of life or wanting to live life in the moment when really you knew they were just horny. And he wanted this. Us. You and me. He wanted it. He'd be happy.”

Now he was crying. She was standing there looking sadly at him with her arms crossed and biting her bottom lip. She was shaking her head again.

“You aren't Josh,” she said.

“I know that,” he bit back.

“You are more than Josh's best friend and his follower. You're your own person too,” she continued.

“I said I know that,” he snapped. He stood forgetting about his leg in his anger.

“Do you?” she asked. 

“Yes.” This was stupid of course he knew that.

“Then why is this relationship about what Josh wanted for us instead of what you and I want for us?” The way she asked it broke his heart.

“I didn't mean any of it like that,” he tried to tell her. The weight of what he implied hitting him.

“It seems like you don't mean a lot of things the way they come out,” she answered. She looked off to the side as she considered the next thing she said.

“Chris, I didn't sign up for a relationship that included you, me and our dead best friend,” she started, “And I think you might still have a lot of stuff you need to work out about what happened with Josh...”

Oh, no. Oh God. She wasn't saying what he thought she was saying right? She wasn't about to do this. Not here. Not now.

“So I think it would be best if we stop seeing each other... romantically, I mean.” It was so quiet after. He almost didn't believe she had said it.

“Are you breaking up with me?” Chris asked coldly, “At my best friend's wake?”

“That's cruel way to look at it,” Ashley said trying to give him a sympathetic look. She glanced down at his leg and he could tell she wanted to ask him to stop putting his weight on it. She knew not to though. She couldn't say anything in good conscience after she had just dumped him.

“Yeah it is,” he responded. He should feel sad. He should be begging her to stay with him. He should apologize to her. He should promise her he'd be better from now on.

He didn't. Because he was too busy thinking about how them breaking up wasn't fair... to Josh, which is exactly the reason she was doing it.

“I'm sorry Chris,” she continued, “But you aren't ready for this.”

She was right.

“And it's not like we can't still be friends. I want us to be friends. We're best friends.”

They were.

“And I hope you understand that this is because I care about you.”

He did.

“It doesn't change the way I feel. I still l-”

“Don't,” he snapped falling onto the couch. They hadn't been together long enough for her to get the chance to say that to him in a happy moment. He didn't want this to be his memory of the first time Ashley said that she loved him. Or he guessed the only time Ashley would ever say that she loved him. 

She stayed there watching him for a few minutes unsure what she should do. He thought he should tell her to go away, but he didn't want her to leave. As soon as she left then this became real. As long as she stayed there watching him they weren't broken up yet. They were still together. Or at least she was here and the implications of their break-up remained in the air. She wasn't going to stay forever though and she had no reason to stick around him.

“Do you want me to stay with you?” she asked. He did, but not the way she was asking. He wanted to continue what he had started on the couch with her and hated himself for that. She wasn't offering that. She was offering him a friendly and familiar presence to help him through his grief. He didn't want it. Not from her anyway.

“No,” he said, “I want to be alone.”

She nodded and headed back for the stairs, turning back one last time before she left, “Please call me if you need anything. I'm worried about you, Chris.”

He nodded and watched her leave. Chris couldn't manage to keep her. Not for himself and not for Josh. He shouldn't be surprised. He always failed Josh. Failed at being his best friend, failed at supporting him through shit, failed to let him know he wasn't alone, failed to help him find his sisters, failed to keep him from falling to his depression, failed to stop him from dying.

Chris reached forward to grab a hold of the bottle that he had put down on the table before once he was alone again. It was warm. It was strong. It was Josh's favorite. It had been what they were drinking the night Hannah and Beth went missing. It was what Josh had been drinking when he tried to kill himself. Of course there was a bottle of it down here. Of course Chris would be the one who found it too.

He twisted off the top and set to finishing the half empty bottle.

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning any and all comments containing straight up Ashley hate will not be allowed. You are welcome to your opinions, but I don't want it on this story. 
> 
> All other feedback is welcome.


End file.
